Poinsett Found A Name For Himself On Ego Trip

Goodbye, Mr. Poinsett. It was not exactly a surprise that parents of students at Poinsett Middle School in Cocoa voted 116-32 to change the school's name.

It will become the Ronald McNair Middle School, in honor of one of the lost Challenger astronauts.

Couple of weeks ago, we delved briefly into the background of Joel Roberts Poinsett, a 19th century ambassador to Mexico, congressman, secretary of war under Andrew Jackson, plantation owner and reputed slave owner.

According to some reference works, he was no great shakes at much of anything except reading and watching his field hands care for his crops.

Nobody in Brevard seemed to know why a lake west of Cocoa was named after him, as well as a street and a school in Cocoa.

Now, thanks to Cliff McNulty of Melbourne, we have an answer. He says Poinsett, as war secretary, ordered Gen. Zachary Taylor and 5,000 men south from Mellonville to establish three forts, including Fort Christmas, during the second Indian War.

Part of the trip was on the St. Johns River. During the mission, they discovered some lakes and things and built some forts. As big shots tend to do, they lent their own names to them.

There were Taylor Creek, for example, and Fort Taylor and Lake Taylor, later changed to Lake Winder after an English captain named Winder who served with Taylor. Get the picture?

And there is Lake Monroe on the St. Johns at Sanford, a tribute to President James Monroe.

Lake Poinsett apparently was named to feed the ego of the secretary of war and Poinsett Drive followed in due course.

If this history lesson is flawed, please don't write. It doesn't really matter. Just wanted to make a stab at clearing the record on a guy whose most notable accomplishment was having the poinsettia plant named for him.

No more, thanks. Elsie Crandall of Titusville says birthday celebrations are ''only meant for people who have nothing better to do with their time than mark it.''

Skills test. If you think you are just a number in today's society, be glad you are not a school kid. They have it even worse.

Kids today are tested and categorized and cubbyholed like you wouldn't believe. Heard of the ice cream cone test of your kid's abilities?

Someone close to Brevard schools related this, but we are only passing along part of it.

In this test, children are given cones. If they eat them, they are normal. If they sell them for a profit, they are gifted. Only kidding, folks, in case you are one of those who believe everything you read.

Mischief in radioland. Everybody knows there is a building boom in Melbourne but this is ridiculous.

The morning guys on WMEL-AM (92) think they've been broadcasting from the sixth floor of a luxurious skyscraper. I hate to be the one to tell you, guys, but you aren't.

About a week ago, Dennis Forsyth and newscaster Mark Auman started the myth that they were doing the 6-to-10 a.m. show from a mythical company commissary in the mythical building's mythical tower amid sound effects of mythical people enjoying a mythical breakfast.

''The response has been amazing,'' Forsyth said. ''One lady called in to ask if it was true. I told her it was all in our heads. She got mad. Said we had fooled her.''

He said Auman was in a phone booth away from the station the other day. ''A guy walked up and said, 'You're that guy from the commissary, aren't you?' '' Strange what turns listeners on. Meanwhile, the show, including Forsyth's mythical jokes, still is emanating from the station's one-story building on Turtle Mound Road.